A study by Rice University scientists on the role of threatened lemurs as seed dispersers in Madagascar’s biodiverse rainforest is featured on the cover of the centennial edition of Ecology, a journal published by the Ecological Society of America.

Rice bioscientist Amy Dunham and graduate student Onja Razafindratsima spent three years studying the movements of fruit-eating lemurs to detail their symbiotic relationship with trees in a rainforest in southeastern Madagascar. Their observations, experiments and mathematical models showed seeds of a common canopy tree have a 300 percent higher chance of sprouting when dispersed by lemurs rather than simply falling to the ground.